1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to an embroidery data processing apparatus capable of generating stitch data for stitching an embroidery area.
2. Description of the Related Art
Stitch data for stitching an embroidery was conventionally generated by a skilled person determining the position coordinates of needle location points for each stitch. An embroidery data processing apparatus has recently been developed, which is able to semi-automatically generate stitch data for embroideries by defining an embroidery body that designates the shape, position, size, stitching direction, stitch density, and the like of an area to be embroidered. Such apparatuses are now widely used.
In the case of an embroidery pattern wherein the outline that defines the shape of an area to be embroidered intersects itself, such as a pattern having the shape of an Arabic numeral "8", a plurality of closed areas to be embroidered are formed. However, the conventional embroidery data processing apparatus applies the same stitching attributes, such as stitch direction, thread density and the like, to all the closed areas defined by a single outline. That is, the closed areas defined by the single outline are to be stitched with the same stitching attributes. Since the conventional apparatus is unable to set stitching attributes separately for individual closed areas that are defined by a single outline, the apparatus requires a user to perform a time-consuming operation, that is, to prepare an area-defining outline separately for each closed area, if it is necessary or preferable to set different stitching attributes for different closed areas.